Speaker 1: So Thanksgiving is next week. Oh boy, are you cooking? No?
Speaker 2: I'm not.
Speaker 1: What a time I was about to say, what was
Speaker 1: the last time you didn't cook for Thanksgiving? That's that's wild.
Speaker 1: No turkey for me, No turkey in my house, period,
Speaker 1: because none of us like it. Like we used to
Speaker 1: get turkey every year and now we're just like, no,
Speaker 1: we don't like turkey. Let's just say that that's not
Speaker 1: a part of what we eat. I eat thea kias turkey,
Speaker 1: to be clear, because she she does something different. It
Speaker 1: tastes very good. The kiss turkey tastes like ham, and
Speaker 1: so I will eat that bird.
Speaker 2: I know this is like the first Thanksgiving in forever
Speaker 2: that I'm not cooking, but I'm happy to say I
Speaker 2: will not be rattling pots and pans.
Speaker 1: I never cook for Thanksgiving. If somebody asks me to
Speaker 1: make something, I usually just do like mac and cheese,
Speaker 1: and that's it.
Speaker 2: I remember that boomerang from when you made that mac
Speaker 2: and cheese. Oh man, it looks so good.
Speaker 1: People like it. I don't really eat mac and cheese
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 2: I know this goes against everything that we know. Everybody
Speaker 2: that's listening, you know you're not supposed to eat the
Speaker 2: mac and cheese. If somebody says I don't eat mac
Speaker 2: and cheese like that and they made it.
Speaker 1: It's actually very good. Yes, because I have everybody taste
Speaker 1: tests and I'm like, be honest, and it's my sister,
Speaker 1: so they're always going to be honest. So I'm t
Speaker 1: T and I'm Zakiah and from Spotify Studios. This is
Speaker 1: Dope Labs.
Speaker 2: Everybody knows we love food. It's no secret We've talked
Speaker 2: about it so much. But I think there's always so
Speaker 2: many of these complicated relationships with food. Some of them
Speaker 2: are around culture, some of them are around like sourcing
Speaker 2: of food, and Thanksgiving is just one of those food
Speaker 2: based holidays. And I'm like, I don't know about this.
Speaker 2: I know probably since maybe the fourth grade, I've been
Speaker 2: standing up and talking about the Pilgrims wiping out the
Speaker 2: Native Americans every year.
Speaker 1: Yes, so Thanksgiving has a sordid past and people becoming
Speaker 1: less enchanted with the idea of Thanksgiving because of what
Speaker 1: it's rooted in and what it's based on in its history.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's not like that Peanuts cartoon that they show.
Speaker 1: No, and it ain't construction paper feathers and no turkey sandwiches.
Speaker 2: Draw your hand and.
Speaker 1: Turn it into a turkey. It ain't none of that.
Speaker 2: It's none of that. Gather around the corner coopia.
Speaker 1: No, it ain't no cornucopia. Okay, everybody's just starting to
Speaker 1: feel like, no, I'm not with it. Like the only
Speaker 1: Christopher we acknowledge is Wallace.
Speaker 2: So in this episode, we're basically rolling these all of
Speaker 2: these kind of feelings mm hmm and truths, yes, into
Speaker 2: one big ball of dough. That's how you can kind
Speaker 2: of put it.
Speaker 1: What you make with that dope pie truth pie pie.
Speaker 1: I hope it'sleep.
Speaker 2: We are talking about colonialism specifically, we're looking at colonialism
Speaker 2: through the lens of ecology. So if you don't know
Speaker 2: what those words mean, hang tight. We're moving straight to
Speaker 2: the recitation. So we say we're talking about colonialism through
Speaker 2: the lens of ecology.
Speaker 1: Colonialism is a human process that has to do with
Speaker 1: unequal power structures one society interfering with another society's ability
Speaker 1: to thrive. There are a bunch of different types of colonialism,
Speaker 1: but what we're going to focus on in this episode
Speaker 1: is called Setler colonialism. Sellar colonialism implies a group of
Speaker 1: people moving into another group of people's territory and claiming
Speaker 1: it as their own, and in order to do that,
Speaker 1: they are willing to eliminate that other group of people physically, culturally,
Speaker 1: and everything else.
Speaker 2: And the lens through which we're going to explore colonialism
Speaker 2: is ecology. If you remember from our Cuffing season episode,
Speaker 2: Ecology is a branch of biology that deals with the
Speaker 2: relationship of one organism to another, and those organisms to
Speaker 2: their physical surroundings.
Speaker 1: I think it's important for us to kind of unpack
Speaker 1: some of this stuff and talk about some of the
Speaker 1: broader ramifications of colonialism. Like we're becoming more and more
Speaker 1: aware of the effects that it had on the Native
Speaker 1: American population, But there are other things that were affected too.
Speaker 2: Right. We know there are lots of plants and animals
Speaker 2: that are extinct that exist no more.
Speaker 1: Right there are fruits and veggies that are not indigenous
Speaker 1: to North America that are here, that are here that
Speaker 1: we eat daily, that are in our supermarkets, that are
Speaker 1: now grown in the United States. But I have a
Speaker 1: lot of questions about all of this because I feel
Speaker 1: like I only like see like a little little corner
Speaker 1: of it. It's like, not even like the tip of
Speaker 1: the iceberg. I don't even feel like I see the
Speaker 1: full tip of the iceberg. I feel like I can
Speaker 1: only see like a snowflake. And so I really just
Speaker 1: want an avalanche of information about all of this, the
Speaker 1: effects on flora and fauna, the effects on the indigenous
Speaker 1: people of North America, the effects on animals and everything.
Speaker 2: That's an ambitious I know it's good, right because I
Speaker 2: think what it says is that you understand that there
Speaker 2: are effects, right. There are often people think like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's just you know these groups and then you know,
Speaker 2: my cousin is part Cherokee, and it's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: you don't understand all of these groups that were basically eradicated.
Speaker 2: You know. So we've got these big questions, but what
Speaker 2: do we really want to get to the bottom of?
Speaker 2: What are we pressing out here?
Speaker 1: One of the things is what was the ecology of
Speaker 1: North America before European colonialism? Yeah, and how did the
Speaker 1: indigenous communities interact with their environment before then?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's probably a lot we can learn. And then
Speaker 2: I guess the next question that follows that is how
Speaker 2: was ecology affected after colonialism started? So now these people
Speaker 2: are here. Is it a rapid decline? Is it gradual?
Speaker 2: Like what's happening?
Speaker 1: And I think the last question that I have is
Speaker 1: what do we do going forward with all the information
Speaker 1: that we're about to get. What are the steps that
Speaker 1: we can take as citizens of America, citizens of this world,
Speaker 1: citizen scientists, as global citizens, as I like to say,
Speaker 1: to make things better and to improve the environment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I think we're definitely at a point now
Speaker 2: where we're back in the stage of conservation, trying to
Speaker 2: undo all of this stuff that's been done in the
Speaker 2: past couple hundred years.
Speaker 1: And you can't know where you're going unless you know
Speaker 1: where you came from. A so let's get into the
Speaker 1: dissection and to help us out, we called on doctor
Speaker 1: Nicholas Rio.
Speaker 3: I'm a citizen of the sus Saint Mary tribe of
Speaker 3: Chipwall Indians, which is a tribal nation located in Northern
Speaker 3: Michigan what's now known as Northern Michigan. And I'm an
Speaker 3: associate professor of Native American Studies and Environmental Studies at
Speaker 3: Dartmouth College.
Speaker 2: Doctor Rial Studies Indigenous Knowledge and Ecological Stewardship on Indigenous lands.
Speaker 2: Another area of his focused is broadening discussions on climate
Speaker 2: change and invasive species by including indigenous lives and indigenous perspectives.
Speaker 1: What is invasive species.
Speaker 2: Invasive species are organisms that are non native to an area,
Speaker 2: and so often because they're not native, they're able to
Speaker 2: take over an area and eliminate other native plants. Or
Speaker 2: if a native plant is wiped out and an invasive species,
Speaker 2: a non native plant is brought in, then they kind
Speaker 2: of like claim that area.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Settlar colonialism on a plant scale and animal scale.
Speaker 1: Doctor Rio is the perfect guest for this episode because
Speaker 1: when we talk about European colonialism, it's always through the
Speaker 1: lens of the Europeans, yep, Like they were these great
Speaker 1: people that they were going out and building these ships
Speaker 1: and sailing across all the seven seas and doing this
Speaker 1: really great work. But there were other people on these
Speaker 1: lands that were already there, living and thriving before they
Speaker 1: got there.
Speaker 2: And in this episode, we really want to talk about
Speaker 2: the land in the context of the indigenous experience, knowledge,
Speaker 2: and rich history.
Speaker 1: So let's start by talking about the northeast region of
Speaker 1: what is now known as the United States way before
Speaker 1: European colonialism.
Speaker 3: So the Northeast is a huge region. Prior to European contact,
Speaker 3: you had a lot of people. It was, first of all,
Speaker 3: very much a peopled landscape. We tend to underestimate not
Speaker 3: only the presence of indigenous people, but the influence of
Speaker 3: indigenous people on the landscape.
Speaker 2: So not only was the land highly populated by diverse
Speaker 2: indigenous communities, it was also very developed, but not in
Speaker 2: a way that was familiar to Europeans.
Speaker 3: When Europeans first laid eyes on, you know, the various
Speaker 3: parts of the Northeast, they misinterpreted those spaces as being
Speaker 3: you know, natural quote unquote, as being wilderness and defining
Speaker 3: that as a place that is sort of, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of it's got the natural ecology going on and
Speaker 3: that doesn't involve human interference or inputs.
Speaker 1: Just because they didn't recognize a neat, little English garden
Speaker 1: didn't mean that the land hadn't been cultivated for a
Speaker 1: long period of time. Indigenous tribes in the Northeast were
Speaker 1: producing food and medicine within the landscape through really dynamic,
Speaker 1: committed relationships with different plants, animals, and ecosystems.
Speaker 2: I feel like there's a lot we can learn from
Speaker 2: what the relationship is between self and environment right from
Speaker 2: some of these indigenous groups, because you have to think
Speaker 2: if they were making medicine and doing all this stuff,
Speaker 2: but when you show up with your European eyes, you
Speaker 2: felt like the land was uninhabited.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: That speaks volumes in my mind right about not disturbing nature,
Speaker 2: and there have to be some clues learn they're about
Speaker 2: conservation and to help us understand this relationship, Doctor Rio
Speaker 2: told us about the important connection between a Nishionabe people,
Speaker 2: one of the indigenous groups in the Great Lakes region
Speaker 2: of North America, and their important relationship to wild rice
Speaker 2: or what is called in the national language mynomen.
Speaker 3: It's a very culturally significant plant and being to Annihanabe people.
Speaker 3: It's really a core part of our cultural identity. It's
Speaker 3: a core part of how we understand where we fit
Speaker 3: in the world. And it has an incredible nutritional value too,
Speaker 3: and so it's an important part of our food ways.
Speaker 3: We don't just treat it like it we're a relative.
Speaker 3: It's like literally a part of our ken.
Speaker 1: It's just like the respect that you have for your
Speaker 1: friends or your family, Like respecting them doesn't mean, you know,
Speaker 1: not checking in on them, not giving them the resources
Speaker 1: they need to survive, not talking to them and making
Speaker 1: sure that they're okay, Like they approach it the exact
Speaker 1: same way, like it's their family, and the Innitianabe approach
Speaker 1: to the care and harvesting of this world rice is
Speaker 1: with the same kind of respect.
Speaker 3: The specific ways that we knock rice into our boats.
Speaker 3: It allows for the plants to produce more seed and
Speaker 3: for a lot more of that seed to actually germinate
Speaker 3: at the bottom of the lake bed than if you
Speaker 3: were to not touch it at all.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that's really interesting because when we
Speaker 2: think about respect, sometimes you think that means like leave
Speaker 2: it alone, don't touch it. But in this case, they're saying,
Speaker 2: we are doing specific actions to stimulate growth, right, to
Speaker 2: encourage seeds to drop down into this fertile soil and
Speaker 2: to grow more plants.
Speaker 3: I think that there's a lot of examples like that
Speaker 3: where it's definitely a sort of an indigenous perspective about
Speaker 3: reciprocal relationships between humans and plants and humans and animals.
Speaker 3: Indigenous perspectives more often hold that our dynamic engagement with
Speaker 3: those plants and animals helps them to thrive in various ways.
Speaker 2: So that's a great point. What about the animals? For
Speaker 2: the Initionabe, there is also great importance on interaction between
Speaker 2: humans and animals. There's a relationship there that requires attension
Speaker 2: and care. Doctor Rio gave us a great example.
Speaker 3: So for Nishinabe folks, some of our oldest teachings about
Speaker 3: our connections to other beings on this planet tell us
Speaker 3: that we are on a parallel path with wolves, who
Speaker 3: we refer to as Mayingen, and that whatever happens to Mayingen,
Speaker 3: what happened to the Nishanabk. Both Mayingen and a Nishanabek
Speaker 3: rely heavily on wawashkashe or the deer as a really
Speaker 3: important part of our food ways. If the deer population
Speaker 3: is suffering, then we'll see Mayingen and a Nishnabek both
Speaker 3: populations suffering. And so we're integrally tied together and our
Speaker 3: fates are interwoven, and recognizing that connection makes a Nishanabic
Speaker 3: folks very committed to the well being of both wolves
Speaker 3: and deer.
Speaker 2: I think that's a great illustration or example of like
Speaker 2: how we're all tied together. People say it, but like
Speaker 2: this is that in practice.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Like there's no distinction between us and the trees
Speaker 1: and the leaves and the grass and the seeds. We're
Speaker 1: all a part of this world ecosystem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we've learned that for centuries before European colonialism started,
Speaker 2: North America was a densely populated and diverse region where
Speaker 2: indigenous peoples thrived by cultivating sophisticated intimate relationships with plants, animals,
Speaker 2: and the rest of the ecosystem around them. But what
Speaker 2: happened when the Europeans got there? How are those balances affected.
Speaker 2: We'll get into those questions right after the break.
Speaker 1: We're back. And as doctor Rio explained, before European colonialism,
Speaker 1: indigenous communities in North America had for centuries been thriving
Speaker 1: off the land through their highly evolved and complex cultural practices,
Speaker 1: specifically their relationship with the environment around them.
Speaker 2: What we know is that these practices were severely disrupted
Speaker 2: when the Europeans arrived. So basically, when Europeans arrived, they're like,
Speaker 2: I don't recognize any of this. This needs to be tamed,
Speaker 2: this needs to be put into, you know, my category
Speaker 2: of gardening, or like, I don't.
Speaker 1: Know these animals, where are the animals that we're used to.
Speaker 2: For them, everything was discovery that was waiting to be influenced.
Speaker 1: The major effect of European colonialism is the genocide of
Speaker 1: indigenous people period. But there are other things that were
Speaker 1: also affected that doctor Rio helped us dive into more.
Speaker 2: He told us about major changes in four main areas, diseases,
Speaker 2: invasive species, deforestation, and global biotic exchange.
Speaker 3: Some of the sort of categorical changes that we have
Speaker 3: seen come from the introduct of diseases.
Speaker 2: My friend was not lying when she said the Pilgrims,
Speaker 2: that's right.
Speaker 1: Tuberculosis, smallpox, the flu. These were all brought from Europe
Speaker 1: and contributed to the depopulation of North America.
Speaker 3: These diseases that were brought from Europe to North America,
Speaker 3: they were very influential in the severe reduction in the
Speaker 3: human population of the continent prior to the big waves
Speaker 3: of colonization. You know, the changeover from primarily, you know,
Speaker 3: from an indigenous human population to relatively short order a
Speaker 3: predominantly euro American settler, euro Canadian settler population. You know,
Speaker 3: a great deal that had to do with the introduction
Speaker 3: of diseases.
Speaker 2: This is interesting, he said, You know, the severe reduction
Speaker 2: of human population of the continent prior to the big
Speaker 2: waves of colonization. So this is not just violence with
Speaker 2: a sword, right, Like, this is biological warfare for real.
Speaker 1: The next area that was greatly affected was invasive species.
Speaker 3: The introduction of European agricultural systems came with a lot
Speaker 3: of associated pest species. So Europeans brought some species on
Speaker 3: purpose that had deletorious impacts on the North American landscape,
Speaker 3: and then they brought in some as hitchhikers.
Speaker 2: And it's so interesting because you know, the question is
Speaker 2: was it intentional? Was it unintentional? But we know, you
Speaker 2: know the Spanish, right, they really pride themselves on being explorers.
Speaker 2: And I think I was reading somewhere that the Spanish
Speaker 2: crown used to require all of their exploratory ships right
Speaker 2: to carry seas and plants and livestocks when they went
Speaker 2: on expeditions. Right, this is so they could establish European
Speaker 2: forms of agricultural production. Can you imagine, You're like, I'm
Speaker 2: going somewhere, I don't know anything about it, but I'm
Speaker 2: taking my cow, taking my pig, a couple of these seeds,
Speaker 2: and it's like, you don't know what those effects are.
Speaker 1: Right. It's just like if so we live on the
Speaker 1: East Coast to move to Arizona, which is a lot
Speaker 1: of desert and things like that, and we say, well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to live in the desert. I want
Speaker 1: to live and what I'm used to. I want to
Speaker 1: have a lawn I want to have I don't want
Speaker 1: to have you know, these types of trees. I don't
Speaker 1: want palm trees. I want like a regular maple tree.
Speaker 1: And we go there and we dig up the earth
Speaker 1: and we put down soil that is that a maple
Speaker 1: tree can live in, and we change the ecosystem around
Speaker 1: us to fit what we want that is existing on
Speaker 1: the East Coast, and that begins to buy default change
Speaker 1: everything around it.
Speaker 2: It's like the Butterfly fect. Yeah you know that movie, Yes,
Speaker 2: with Ashton Kutcher. Yes, it's like the Butterfly Fact, except
Speaker 2: you don't get to go back and do it over exactly.
Speaker 1: And preserving these natural parts of different environments is super
Speaker 1: important to the overall health of the ecosystem.
Speaker 3: And it's not only plants but also animals. And then
Speaker 3: one of the more notable one is hogs. So bringing
Speaker 3: in pigs and letting them sort of run free. They
Speaker 3: naturalized and had major impacts on forests of New England
Speaker 3: and other other regions.
Speaker 2: That's wild to me.
Speaker 1: There were no hogs here.
Speaker 2: That's the major industry in North Carolina.
Speaker 1: When we think about America and how Americans eat, pork
Speaker 1: is a major part of that. And I've never considered
Speaker 1: that they weren't indigenous to North America. But they've not
Speaker 1: only contributed to our diet, they ate up a lot
Speaker 1: of the forests.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I see this in the movies all
Speaker 2: the time, and they say like how pigs and hogs
Speaker 2: can totally like rip up roots and everything with their
Speaker 2: snouts and clear whole fields of like trees and grasses
Speaker 2: and native grasses. But also I see people use pigs.
Speaker 2: They say they will eat anything, like they will eat humans.
Speaker 2: They will eat Did you know that now, Yes?
Speaker 1: So that leads us into the next topic that was
Speaker 1: really affected by colonialism, deforestation.
Speaker 3: So European settlers cut down forests in ways that had
Speaker 3: never really been It's not that it's not that indigenous
Speaker 3: peoples didn't cut trees, certainly they did, but the scale
Speaker 3: of timber harvest is that a completely different level by
Speaker 3: European settlers.
Speaker 1: One thing that the Europeans were doing was cutting down
Speaker 1: a lot of trees, yes, in order to have like.
Speaker 2: Rolling hills like they had in Europe.
Speaker 1: Exactly to more so mimic what they had in Europe,
Speaker 1: and then also to like build stuff. And when they're
Speaker 1: shipping things to other countries, they want to put it
Speaker 1: into a box, and the cut down a tree to
Speaker 1: build a box for that and things like that. But
Speaker 1: another thing that came along with that is that they
Speaker 1: also were bringing over trees, yes, that are native to Europe, right,
Speaker 1: because they wanted to again mimic the European landscape. And
Speaker 1: these trees when they would bring them over, they would
Speaker 1: bring them over the whole tree and roots and everything everything.
Speaker 1: And so when you're bringing the roots along, you have
Speaker 1: to bring the dirt and soil that it was in. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And when they did that unintentionally or intentionally, we're not
Speaker 1: really sure, but they also brought over earthworms. The earthworm
Speaker 1: is not something that is native to the United States,
Speaker 1: and so they would come over with the tree, they
Speaker 1: would plant it in the ground, and these earthworms they
Speaker 1: spread like wildfire. We see earthworms from sea to shining sea, Okay,
Speaker 1: like they are everywhere and what we don't know because
Speaker 1: when we think about earthworms, we're like, oh, they're so
Speaker 1: good for our ecosystem and things like that. But earthworms
Speaker 1: also have contributed a lot to deforestation. I'm looking at
Speaker 1: this picture from a paper that somebody wrote that shows
Speaker 1: two pictures, a picture of a forest with no earthworms, right,
Speaker 1: and a forest that has earthworms, And there is a
Speaker 1: clear difference. There's still trees. It looks like a forest
Speaker 1: that we would walk through. It has trees, it has
Speaker 1: little bushes, it has you know, logs and everything like that,
Speaker 1: but the forest is impacted by earthworm. Conception of leaf
Speaker 1: detritus leave to try is the kid. You can explain
Speaker 1: it way better than me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just like falling leaf waste or debris. But
Speaker 2: that also is like fertilizer, right. That is then those
Speaker 2: nutrients from those deadlys are then reconsumed by that soil.
Speaker 2: They add bat you fall from the tree cover down
Speaker 2: to the ground, you provide nutrients for that soil.
Speaker 1: So the earthworms are eating all that stuff up, which
Speaker 1: completely changes the look and feel of the forest.
Speaker 2: And the last of these categories is global biotic exchange.
Speaker 2: So this is the movement of products, food, agricultural products
Speaker 2: across the globe.
Speaker 3: Basically, especially as we as we see the movement of
Speaker 3: not just people but sort of products and goods. When
Speaker 3: we see global trade pickup, and there's the movement of
Speaker 3: products food, agricultural products, but also things that are made
Speaker 3: of wood or that require the packaging of wood and
Speaker 3: pallets and things like that. But just the movement of
Speaker 3: goods across continents through shipping, sort of the globalization of
Speaker 3: our economic system, then we see a huge increase in
Speaker 3: biological introductions across continents, and that's a big impact.
Speaker 1: I think an important point to make is that all
Speaker 1: of these categories that we're talking about do not exist
Speaker 1: in isolation. When you affect one, you affect all of them.
Speaker 2: Right, And that's what makes the impact so large. Right.
Speaker 1: So, even something like deforestation and disease. So let's say
Speaker 1: that they bring over hogs that eat up all the
Speaker 1: plants and the trees and everything like that. But there's
Speaker 1: a specific plant that they used for medicine, and if
Speaker 1: that plant is no longer there and this disease shows up,
Speaker 1: that they would normally use a plant as this plant
Speaker 1: as a treatment and the planet isn't there, then you
Speaker 1: would have depopulation, yep.
Speaker 2: And then what is the effect of the depopulation, right,
Speaker 2: Because when we think about these intentional relationships with plants
Speaker 2: and animals, if you're wiping out these indigenous communities, who
Speaker 2: is the steward of this land now?
Speaker 1: Right? Who's cultivating and who's building? Those are relationships with plants, animals, trees,
Speaker 1: and everything in between.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have to think about the impacts of genocide.
Speaker 3: The depopulation of the Americas, the severe reduction of indigenous
Speaker 3: populations had a huge impact on the things that we're
Speaker 3: talking about and the context of you know, if what
Speaker 3: we saw. You know, you asked, what would the northeast
Speaker 3: have looked like prior to European contact? And I said, well,
Speaker 3: a lot of what you saw had to do with
Speaker 3: relationships between plants and animals and humans. When you take
Speaker 3: a lot of the humans out of that picture, it
Speaker 3: affects what's going on ecologically more broadly.
Speaker 2: The other really interesting thing is that this is not
Speaker 2: just a historical issue, like this is something that persists.
Speaker 2: It's still happening today in so many ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, on reservations where indigenous communities experience disproportionately high rates
Speaker 1: of unemployment, health issues, and suicide.
Speaker 3: And so when we talk about when people, especially indigenous
Speaker 3: studies scholars, talk about settler colonialism, we don't talk about
Speaker 3: it as something that happened. We talk about something that's ongoing.
Speaker 3: So as long as there's a settler presence, and as
Speaker 3: long as Indigenous lives are being eliminated, as long as
Speaker 3: Indigenous cultures are being ignored or eliminated, then settler colonialism
Speaker 3: is ongoing. It's a set of structures and not a
Speaker 3: moment in time.
Speaker 1: So, like you were saying, these things are persistent. It's
Speaker 1: not something that's just in the past and we just
Speaker 1: look back on it and say, oh man, that sucks.
Speaker 1: We're still currently dealing with all of these things. So
Speaker 1: my question is what can we do going forward to
Speaker 1: make our environment better, not just for our plants and animals,
Speaker 1: but for the indigenous population as a whole.
Speaker 3: I think we have to figure out ways to make
Speaker 3: space for indigenous peoples. We need to be able to
Speaker 3: make space physically. You know, people need physical space for
Speaker 3: their for their political and cultural and economic endeavors. So
Speaker 3: that has to do with returning land so we need
Speaker 3: to make that kind of space. Make space politically so
Speaker 3: that the places that indigenous peoples do have some control,
Speaker 3: you know, reservations, other places, urban centers where indigenous peoples
Speaker 3: are living and have some control, to create policy structures
Speaker 3: that allow them to have self determination for their own futures,
Speaker 3: to determine their own future paths, and to not interfere
Speaker 3: with a lot of court rulings and policies that interfere
Speaker 3: with their ways of interacting with the world. And to
Speaker 3: make space ontologically to recognize the importance of indigenous ways
Speaker 3: of understanding the world and ways of being in the world,
Speaker 3: to make space for that in our education system and
Speaker 3: the court of law and other places.
Speaker 1: As people who want to be aware of, you know,
Speaker 1: all the ways that we are affecting our environment and
Speaker 1: the ecology. I think this kind of just shine a
Speaker 1: light in a very dark corner, Yes.
Speaker 2: And I think there's a lot to be learned here,
Speaker 2: right even in your outlook and approach. Sometimes these things
Speaker 2: can feel so overwhelming and you feel like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: there's nothing I can do. But I think even some awareness,
Speaker 2: some space and just thinking about taking this interconnected approach
Speaker 2: to everything that you do to conservation, to changes you
Speaker 2: want to make right. It all matters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, do a little bit of research on
Speaker 1: where you're from, your town, your state, and find out
Speaker 1: about the indigenous people of that area and take that
Speaker 1: first initial step. And once you can find out what
Speaker 1: they were doing and the way that the landscape looked,
Speaker 1: then you can make deliberate efforts to improve our environment.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of organizations that are pushing back
Speaker 2: to replanting some of our native seeds and plants, and
Speaker 2: so there's a lot of opportunity you just have to
Speaker 2: go looking for.
Speaker 1: What I think I might do is do some research
Speaker 1: on the indigenous people of Maryland and my county, PG
Speaker 1: County and find out the types of food that they
Speaker 1: were eating and maybe try and make something with those ingredients.
Speaker 2: I hope they're still around for you to do it exactly.
Speaker 1: It might be tough, but I think it's worth it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm in. I'm in.
Speaker 1: That's it for Lab eighteen. Don't forget to check out
Speaker 1: our website for a cheat sheet on today's episode. You
Speaker 1: can find it and sign up for our newsletter at
Speaker 1: Dope labspodcast dot com.
Speaker 2: Also, we love hearing from you what did you think
Speaker 2: about today's lab? What are your ideas for future labs?
Speaker 2: Give us a call. Our number is two zero two
Speaker 2: five six seven seven zero two eight. You can also
Speaker 2: find us on Twitter and Instagram at Dope Labs. Podcasts,
Speaker 2: tt is on Twitter at dr Underscore t.
Speaker 1: SA, and you can find Zakiya at z Said So.
Speaker 2: Follow us on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to our guest doctor Nicholas Rio. You can
Speaker 2: find out more about his work in our show notes.
Speaker 2: Our producer is Jenny rattlet Mass of Wave Runner Studios.
Speaker 2: Mixing and sound design by Hannis Brown and special thanks
Speaker 2: to Tyler Adams.
Speaker 1: Original theme music is by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex sugi Ura,
Speaker 1: with additional music by Elijah Alex Harvey.
Speaker 2: Dope Labs is a production of Spotify Studios and Mega
Speaker 2: Own Media Group, and it's executive produced by us T. T.
Speaker 2: Shadia and Zakiah Wattley.
Speaker 1: Kats are not native to the United States.
Speaker 2: Yes, the bird people have been really telling me a
Speaker 2: lot about that, because they're saying that well, the bird
Speaker 2: people I follow on Twitter. Shout out to the Autobon
Speaker 2: Society